Forum: Execution etiquette and the mob solution

By Michael Morris

Published 5:22 pm, Thursday, September 25, 2014

Let’s face it, when it comes to executing death row inmates, we in the United States are a bit squeamish. We want “humane executions,” a phrase that is arguably the gold standard for all oxymorons. Killing someone who’d rather be doing something else that day is hard to describe as humane. And lately, the U.S. has been having a particularly difficult time providing the condemned with a smooth transition to non-life.

Most recently, Joseph Wood III “gasped and snorted” for over an hour after being injected with lethal drugs in Arizona, and the entire procedure lasted for nearly two hours before he was declared dead.

Roughly two months earlier in Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett had “writhed, groaned, convulsed, and spoke” during the procedure, and had actually tried to get up from the execution table and (presumably) leave the event that was being held in his honor.

Things got so unpleasant that prison officials closed the blinds to the chamber, the equivalent of drawing the curtains in front of a movie screen at the Cineplex and announcing, “This scene is just too gross for you to watch.” Overall, it took Mr. Lockett 43 minutes to die.

It’s clear that we need to start brainstorming better methods for administering government-sponsored death. The lethal-injection approach goes awry too frequently, in part because U.S. pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to provide executioners with the most effective chemical cocktails. To whom can we turn in these awkward circumstances? What group of citizens is willing and able to kill people quickly, efficiently, and with as little mess as possible?

I cast my vote for the branch of organized crime known as “the mob.” These folks have a solid track record, established over at least the past century. Their core strategy is simple, straightforward, and successful. You approach the target from behind, lightly press your handgun to the individual’s brainstem, and PING! you’re done. The entire operation takes at most a few seconds, sparing us stomach-churning execution spectacles that drag on longer than back-to-back episodes of “Family Guy.” And a gun-to-the-head policy would allow Americans to feel closer to (and learn the existence of) Belarus, the sole European nation that still executes people, typically with a bullet to the brain.

Admittedly, this proposal might strike many as being less humane than lethal injection, in which the goal is to have the victim appear to drift off to sleep, perhaps displaying a faint smile (or furrowed brow). But, of course, the injection version of humaneness is much more focused on our comfort level than that of Mr. Woods or Mr. Lockett. After all, they’re the ones who are doing the dying, and we’d prefer not to gag while we watch them do it. As it turns out, the suffering of these gentlemen would have been considerably less if they had simply been “pinged” by a competent professional.

The problem, unfortunately, is that shooting defenseless people looks a lot like murder, especially when contrasted with the image of a chemically induced snooze. And murder, as we all know, is punishable by death.